Chasing a Shadow
by 1yellowfish
Summary: No John and a spring cleaning of the Mind-Palace. What could go wrong? Sherlock-centric one shot


**A little plot bunny went running by and then doubled back and held me at gunpoint until I told it's story. Jerk took my wallet too, but the joke's on him, I'm broke. Still it's a cute story, at least I thought so.**

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**Chasing a Shadow**

John was gone.

Sherlock was used to being alone. He _liked_ being alone. He wouldn't even have a flatmate if his brother hadn't won a favor on a gamble. He still said it was rigged but was unwilling to lose face.

Still the fact remained John was gone.

So Sherlock did what he always did when bored and faced with a promise of more boredom. He retreated to his mind palace to think. John called it sulking.

"It's not sulking." He defended himself. But John couldn't hear because John was gone.

Sherlock flung himself at full length on the sofa and stared into the void before retreating yet again into his palace. He had data to sort. He'd run that experiment on the decay rate of fingers in the bathtub, and the growth of that rather pungent fungi on the last of the milk. He smirked remembering Johns exasperated sigh at that experiment, although he may have been reacting to the marmite on the kitchen table. The jar itself was mostly harmless but the ear sticking out of it just may have disturbed the man slightly. Sherlock didn't understand why, the man was a doctor after all, and a soldier surely he'd dealt with body parts before.

Still, Sherlock wasn't thinking about John. He was glad John had gone for a weekend. Visiting some army buddy or something, perhaps a conference, he wasn't sure he'd deleted it. So Sherlock wandered quite happily through the halls of his palace, rearranging cases, pulling useless data and binning it with glee. He decided to forget about the solar system again, just to spite John.

Not that he was thinking about his absent blogger.

Mrs. Hudson was talking at him. Irrelevant. He didn't surface, he was busy.

Mrs. Hudson hit him with a rolled up newspaper. He sighed and surfaced just enough to eat the sandwich she shoved at him. Really she was such a Nanny.

She hit him again and he remembered not to say that outloud while she was in striking distance.

The woman left and he returned to his work.

There was little left for him to do. His palace was organized, running at peak efficiency. He checked it thoroughly and was about to surface to search for John's gun, Smile's was looking a little too solid for his tastes, when a brush against his leg had him turning and searching the palace.

Something was not right.

There was motion where previously there had been none. A stray memory? Something not quite deleted? He _hated_ shadow memories.

It had taken him weeks to deal with some of the more stubborn ones from his childhood. Even then they hadn't allowed themselves to be properly deleted, just stored in a sub-basement back closet that Sherlock conveniently forgot existed. Until it was needed of course. He stilled and centered himself. There! Sherlock rushed the parlor.

No nothing here but the same boring family history his mother insisted he remember and he did so hate to upset Mummy.

A soft flutter of fabric had him dashing into the dining room. A few interesting cases here. Lots of poison knowledge, but no stray memories.

For hours he stalked his palace tracking the tiny almost noises of the stray memory and grew more and more frustrated. The blasted thing was toying with him. It was unacceptable. It was his mind palace and he was in control.

Unfortunately a side effect of deleting the memory meant he didn't know what he was chasing, so unlike what he chose to keep he couldn't call it to him and have it respond. It was the only time he truly understood what it must feel like to have a word on the tip of the tongue, something just out of reach. It was maddening. He honestly felt sorry for John, who he wasn't thinking of, to have to exist with this feeling so often. Every time he tried to recall a forgotten face or voice, a song lyric or name.

There was a noise.

Not a half noise.

Not an almost noise.

A proper noise.

The shadow memory would have to wait. There was someone in the flat.

Sherlock didn't move. Didn't change how he was flung on the couch, or his breathing patterns, but he did focus his attentions outside instead of in.

The person was very good. How they had managed to get in without Sherlock noticing even while absorbed in his palace was intriguing. He disregarded John as a possibility; he wasn't due back for at least an hour. Although with luck at the station he could be back as soon as twenty minutes. Still the noises were too soft. Too delicate to be the tired sore blogger back from, well anywhere that had him on the train for a couple hours. Cornwall, perhaps? Didn't matter, irrelevant.

The soft sounds implied a woman, but a very slight one at that. Too slight. The shift of paper had him exerting his control. Whoever they were they were looking through the papers on the coffee table. The coffee table right next to him. Sherlock breathed evenly, calmly and found he couldn't discern exactly where the person was standing. The very small person, girl, child even?

Why was there a child in the room? Why did it not make as much noise as they were supposed too? He couldn't hear the brush of fabric on fabric as they moved.

Sherlock did still noticeably at that, and kept his eyes very shut. If there was a possibility of a young girl wearing no clothes in his apartment he needed to text Mycroft now, and not open his eyes. Surely John would understand it was a nefarious plot against his character but the damage would be done. He wondered if Moriarty had a hand in this, and if the call to the local police had already been made.

He stopped breathing all together when there was a sudden pressure on his chest. Just a point. The girl was poking him?

No more pressure, patting him?

There was an alternating pressure. Kneading him? Why was the girl kneading him? Where was his cell phone he needed to get it and text Mycroft _now!_

Suddenly there was a weight on his chest and his eyes tried very hard to open. There was a head on his chest. A warm breathing head on his chest. He couldn't tell where the rest of the girl was though. The only plausible explanation was she was sitting on the coffee table head pressed into his chest. It was a stupid position. Why would she sit like that?

Nothing made sense.

Why was she making that strange rumbling noise? Was that the noise children made when they were hungry? Or God forbid was she about to cry? He didn't think he could handle this.

"Look, this is not productive at all." He finally addressed the intruder/child/plot-to-destroy-him resting on his chest. "You have to tell me why you're here so I can call someone to make you not be here anymore. Then we'll both be happy."

The alien rumble continued.

Sherlock sighed. "Alright, small words. Well, smaller words. Talk. To. Me."

Nothing, the warm rumbling just echoed on his chest. Sherlock did not like this at all.

"Fine. There's a blanket on John's chair, the one behind you, go and wrap up in it and I'll call Lestrade. He's a policeman. Police are you're friends. That's what they teach you right?" Sherlock's face twisted. "It's a gross exaggeration. Police are just as likely to become criminals as anyone, more likely to be involved in domestic disputes, and less likely to be charged. So don't date the police. Really. Lestrade's alright though. He's the brightest of a dull lot, and has this shining armor thing going for him. It's quite disgusting really."

Sherlock shifted turning so his chest pushed the head slightly. It shifted along with him but didn't leave.

"Are all children so dim?" He rocked rather suddenly and the head was gone. He waited a moment but didn't hear the child moving.

"Alright, you're decent and everything now. If not I'm hardly to blame." Still he opened his eyes cautiously.

There was no one there. With a puzzled look Sherlock cast his eye's about the room, nothing. Nothing was out of place; nothing suggested a person, no matter how young, had been in the room at all. He lifted his hand to his chest and felt the warm patch. Then quickly checked his arms for needle marks sighing with relief he hadn't injected himself with anything. He wouldn't, John would be disappointed, not that he cared, but it made life dull when the doctor was being all disapproving and not making him tea.

A glance at the clock told him John would be home soon, between five minutes and forty-five, depending on whether he'd had a good time and taken a later train or a rough time and took the first he could. He had four minutes minimum to solve this case without having to risk John finding a naked child in their rooms. Children liked to hide didn't they? How did one go about luring them out?

He didn't lure children, he didn't like children, they were sticky, loud, uninteresting and simply boring. The one thing he did like about children was their honesty, sure they lied all the time but they were awful at it really, and with the best of intentions they always let slip the truth. That and the police often discarded a child's testimony and it made them look foolish when Sherlock solved their problems with a child's words. He grinned slightly. Still, not helping he had three minutes minimum.

He took in the room closed his eyes and catalogued it alongside its memory. Something was not right. John's chair had an extra blanket on it, tucked around it tightly. There was a feather on the floor, but it hadn't come from any of their pillows or his experiments. The bathroom door had been left ajar which was a habit neither him nor John had. There was a shush of noise from the kitchen. Sherlock stalked towards it and then stilled. Was it possible he was fevered and still in his mind-palace chasing the memory shadow?

He tried a quick self-diagnosis but found it flawed, he felt fine and everything seemed to be working properly but how could he be certain if the problem were a mental one? He hated doubting his own mind so he decided that he was awake and that the noises were real. There was a clang of a dish hitting another and he strode into the kitchen on high alert.

It took a moment for his mind to process the reality. There was no child. There was no shadow memory. What there was, was an irritated one green eyed tabby batting at an empty dish that was bouncing off of a larger dish half full with water. The thing looked at him accusingly and leapt onto the kitchen table without bothering to stand properly first. It stalked over to him and headbutted his stomach.

There was a noise on the stairs. John was coming.

Sherlock absently reached out and picked up the creature. It wriggled until it was comfortable and made the strange rumbling noise again. Sherlock stood in the living room brain rushing as John came in looking worn out and relieved, conference then.

"We have a cat." Sherlock announced.

John just looked at him fondly.

"How long have we had a cat?" Sherlock demanded.

John merely shuffled over and scratched the cat behind its slightly torn ear. "Poor Mem's." He mumbled to the creature. "Did he ignore you all weekend."

"John!" Sherlock demanded. "Why do we have a cat?"

John took the heavy thing from his arms and just looked at him with eyes that told him nothing. Sherlock crossed his arms and refused to think that he missed the warm weight.

"John?"

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Sherlock absolutely did not pout.

"I told you to stop deleting out cat. I told you I wouldn't help you remember and you went ahead and deleted him anyway. Now I've been gone all weekend and me and Remember have some cuddling to catch up on." John said picking up his bag and heading for his room. "When you remember our cat you can have your cuddle, but not before."

There was the sound of John's door shutting and Sherlock sat on the couch again taking every detail of the room apart. Cat hairs, shifted papers, the feather, the bathroom door – oh litter box, kitchen is for food. The cat's taken over the apartment. Resigned Sherlock retreated to his mind palace, down to the sub-sub-basement and past the room of shadow memories to the little door that opened to a rope ladder that dropped down past the edge of nowhere into the darkness. He looked and waited. A meow had him climbing down carefully. The ladder literally went on for eternity, luckily cats can climb. The tabby named Remember was batting at his pants leg and he swung gently on the rope as the thing clambered up his leg onto his chest where he tucked it close to his body and brought it back up with him.

Emerging from his mind palace Sherlock let out a small "oh." And went found himself at Johns door, he didn't knock.

He stood at the foot of the bed and smiled at John who was petting the large cat that was sitting on his chest.

"John. We have a cat." He announced.

"Yes. Yes we do Sherlock."

"It's not a He."

"No, you remembered that then." John grinned.

"I'm fairly certain she's pregnant." Sherlock added, sliding onto the bed beside the shorter man. "Now I believe I was promised my cuddle."

"Pregnant?" John groaned.

"Yes, kittens."

"Sherlock, we're going to have kittens."

Sherlock just smiled. "Yes, but cuddles first."

"Shoes off the bed." John sighed. He could deal with kittens later. Sherlock was a full time occupation.

There were two thumps and a warmth pushed into his side, pressed along his full height. Yea, kittens later.

Then the three took a warm, snuggly nap that two of the three would deny had happened. John however, was quite happy with it all.

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**So The Doctor, The Soldier, and The Madman, still finished, was supposed to be editing and posting chapter 8 but this happened instead. I suck. Was also supposed to work on lesson plans, didn't happen, and on the sequel to TD,TS,& TM, but I didn't. Basically Sunday was not productive and it's all my own fault. Let this plot bunny appease you, and stave of the consumption of my soul by the god's of procrastination, you know whenever they feel like doing that.**


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